Ex-Im Bank deal clears Congress

The Export-Import Bank won a new lease on life from Congress on Tuesday, as the Senate approved a House-passed bill extending the bank’s charter through September 2014 and raising its loan exposure cap to $140 billion — a 40 percent increase.

The 78-20 vote ends months of haggling over the future of the low-profile agency that has more than doubled its annual loan activity since the 2008 financial collapse but also become an easy target for Republican tea party forces at war with the GOP’s older corporate establishment.

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Facing a tough primary challenge next month, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) quietly fell in line behind his young tea party colleague, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), even to the point of joining in a doomed amendment to wipe out the bank entirely in the space of one year.

But South Carolina’s GOP delegation was the true ground zero, and in vote after vote Tuesday afternoon, Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham butted heads without apology.

Boeing’s huge investment in the state — where the company’s 787 Dreamliner passenger jets are rolling out to meet foreign sales orders dependent on Ex-Im financing — punctuated this spat. And last Wednesday, South Carolina’s five Republicans in the House broke only 3-2 for the bill, again influenced by the Boeing jobs in hard economic times.

“From a South Carolina perspective, this is a very big deal. It was a big deal to get Boeing to come to South Carolina,” Graham told his Senate colleagues in support of the bill. “Eight out of 10 planes being manufactured in Charleston, S.C., are sold based on Export-Import Bank financing.

“It’s one thing to do reform; it’s another thing to unilaterally surrender,” Graham added. “It’s one thing to lead the world; it’s another thing to put people who make products in America at risk unnecessarily.”

“Our job is to protect taxpayers,” answered DeMint minutes later. “When we guarantee a loan, we are signing the taxpayer’s name to a loan guarantee. … We cannot assume this money is coming back to the taxpayer.

“We’re in a bidding war with China and Europe to see who can subsidize the most loans at a time when all of us are broke. We need to bring this to a close,” DeMint said.

Indeed, the bill includes significant reforms negotiated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) but also gives the bank substantial freedom to continue on the aggressive course set under President Barack Obama.